“What takes away the compulsion of revenge is our deep confidence that this world is not our home, and that God is our utterly sure and all-satisfying reward.” —John Piper
“Though it is clear as noonday in Scripture and in experience that stability is not to be found beneath the moon, yet men are for ever building upon earth’s quicksand as if it were substantial rock, and heaping up its dust, as though it would not all be blown away.” —Charles Spurgeon
This post from a Live Dead team member—The Risk Of Security—reminds me to (1) pray for our front-line missionaries, and (2) pray that God will move on people’s hearts to raise up more missionaries!
How to poison your marriage in 3 easy steps: blame, compare, withdraw. Married couple should definitely read this post.
“True revival can never take place without this kind of all-consuming hunger for God’s Word. Indeed, when God’s people grow weary of hearing His Word preached, a spiritual death begins—and the joy of the Lord departs.” —David Wilkerson
“The Scriptures should be read with the aim of finding Christ in them. Whoever turns aside from this object, even though he wears himself out all his life in learning, he will never reach the knowledge of the truth.” —John Calvin
“Let men see that the world has changed, not you—that man’s opinions and man’s maxims have veered round to another quarter, but that you are still invincibly strong in the strength which trusting in God alone can confer.” —Charles Spurgeon
“The Missionary Spirit of God is ever restless. Where is it dark? Where is it hopeless? Where is there no church? Where are there no Christians? Where is the Father’s glory not known? Where are their tongues that blaspheme and knees refusing to bow to King Jesus? It is there that we must go, must stay, must live, and must die.” —Dick Brogden
“Have you ever looked up? Have you ever been hugged? Have you ever sat in front of a warm fire? Have you ever walked in the woods, sat by a lake, lain in a summer hammock? Have you ever drunk your favorite drink on a hot day or eaten anything good? Every desire is either a devout or a distorted enticement to the glory of heaven. You say you haven’t tasted God’s glory. I say, you have tasted the appetizers. Go on to the meal.” [Psalm 34:8] —John Piper
“Our Heavenly Father also exhorts us to be men. He wants you to be like Him. When He calls you to ‘be perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect,’ He’s asking you to rise above your sinful tendencies to impure eyes, fanciful minds, and wandering hearts. His standard of purity doesn’t come naturally to you. He calls you to rise up, by the power of His indwelling presence, and be the man He created you to be.” —Steve Arterburn
“No amount of falls will really undo us if we keep on picking ourselves up each time. We shall of course be very muddy and tattered children by the time we reach home. But the bathrooms are all ready, the towels put out, and the clean clothes are in the airing cupboard. The only fatal thing is to lose one’s temper and give it up. It is when we notice the dirt that God is most present to us: it is the very sign of His presence.” —C.S. Lewis
“Loving God will include obeying all His commands; it will include believing all His Word; it will include thanking Him for all His gifts; but the essence of loving God is enjoying all He is.” —John Piper
[VIDEO] This is a fascinating TedTalk from Susan Cain on the power of introverts…
“The world has put a little letter before the word ‘musing,’ and these are the days, not for musing, but for a-musing. People will go anywhere for amusement; but to muse is a strange thing to them, and they think it dull and wearisome. … Now there is much virtue in musing, especially if we muse upon the best, the highest, and the noblest of subjects. If we muse upon the things of which we hear and read in sacred Scripture, we shall do wisely. It is well to muse upon the things of God, because we thus get the real nutriment out of them. A man who hears many sermons, is not necessarily well-instructed in the faith. We may read so many religious books, that we overload our brains, and they may be unable to work under the weight of the great mass of paper and printer’s ink. The man who reads but one book, and that book his Bible, and then muses much upon it, will be a better scholar in Christ’s school than he who merely reads hundreds of books, and muses not at all.” —Charles Spurgeon
“Patients do not serve their physicians. They trust them for good prescriptions. The Sermon on the Mount is our Doctor’s medical advice, not our Employer’s job description.” —John Piper
“Every time I open my Bible I will read it as the Word of ‘God, that cannot lie;’ and when I get a promise or a threatening, I will either rejoice or tremble because I know that these stand fast.” —Charles Spurgeon
“Given the Greek and Roman acceptance of homosexuality, it is difficult to overstate the courage and conviction required by the early Church to write and speak out on behalf of a biblical, sexual ethic.” Read more in the article When Christians Rejected Homosexuality.
John Piper is in the midst of an excellent series in his video teaching series called Look At The Book. This series is about Christ’s teaching on anxiety. It will be a 9-part series, so here is a good recap of the first few lessons.
[VIDEO] Did it only take Adam and Eve to see the entire earth?
“You can’t love Christ too much. You can’t think about Him too much or thank Him too much or depend upon Him too much. All our justification, all our righteousness, is in Christ. This is the gospel—the good news that our sins are laid on Christ and His righteousness is laid on us, and that this great exchange happens for us not by works but by faith alone.” —John Piper
“The beginning of true revival comes when a godly company of believers takes on the Lord’s burden for a church or a city trapped in sin. This godly company fasts and prays, pleading with God to begin rebuilding the walls and gates that will protect His people from every enemy.” Read more in David Wilkerson’s post The Beginning Of Revival.
Even in the midst of ISIS persecution in the Middle East, there is some really good news!
[VIDEO] How do scientists come up with the date for Adam and Eve?
“We know that God’s being is perfect, His essence infinite, His dominion absolute, His power unlimited, and His glory transcendent.” —Charles Spurgeon
“A great empire, like a great cake, is most easily diminished from its edges.” —Benjamin Franklin
“We will do most good for this world by keeping a steadfast freedom from its beguiling attractions. We will serve our city best by getting our values from the ‘city which is to come’ (Hebrews 13:14). We will do our city most good by calling as many of its citizens as we can to be citizens of the ‘Jerusalem above’ (Galatians 4:26). Let’s live so that the natives will want to meet our King.” —John Piper
Anyone who works with kids (parents, teachers, coaches) should check out Mark Merrill’s list of 9 things not to say to children.
Matt Chandler says, “sex can be about the Gospel, if we’re mindful enough to make it so.” Read more of his post The ‘Good News’ About Sex.
Eric Metaxas shares an alarming statistic: An astonishing 70,000 children are kidnapped by gangs every year in China! Check out the worldview that contributes to this.
“Prayer for your enemies (Matthew 5:44) is one of the deepest forms of love, because it means that you have to really want that something good happen to them. You might do nice things for your enemy without any genuine desire that things go well with them. But prayer for them is in the presence of God Who knows your heart, and prayer is interceding with God on their behalf.” —John Piper
“The only thing one can usually change in one’s situation is oneself. And yet one can’t change that either—only ask Our Lord to do so….” —C.S. Lewis
“God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.” —C.S. Lewis
“The world is not looking for more doctrinal proof of the reality of God! It is not looking for greater proof of the resurrection or better arguments about creation. The world is looking for Christians who can stand up to every crisis, fear, trouble and difficulty and remain calm and at rest in the midst of it all. The world needs to see God’s children trusting wholly in their Lord.” —David Wilkerson
“I would then that the quickening Spirit would come down upon me, and upon you, upon every one of us in abundance, to create men valiant for truth and mighty for the Lord.” —Charles Spurgeon
I know I have said this before, but I love the infographics and study tools from the folks at The Overview Bible Project. Here is a sample of their overview of Deuteronomy.
Jim Cymbala says, “The Scriptures are not so much the goal as they are an arrow that points us to the life-changing Christ.” Read more in his post The Limits Of Teaching.
Rosaria Butterfield wrote, “Unbelievers don’t ‘struggle’ with same-sex attraction. I didn’t….” Read more in her post The Dead End Of Sexual Sin.
“How can I maximize my enjoyment of God for all eternity while I am an exile on this earth? And the answer is always the same: by doing the labors of love.” —John Piper
“For if we take the imagery of Scripture seriously, if we believe that God will one day give us the Morning Star and cause us to put on the splendor of the sun, then we may surmise that both the ancient myths and the modern poetry, so false as history, may be very near the truth as prophecy. At present we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door. We discern the freshness and purity of morning, but they do not make us fresh and pure. We cannot mingle with the splendors we see. But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumor that it will not always be so. Some day, God willing, we shall get in.” ―C.S. Lewis
“Never reduce Christianity to a matter of demands and resolutions and willpower. It is a matter of what we love, what we delight in, what tastes good to us.” —John Piper
“The man who has a hope for the next world goes about his work strong, for the joy of the Lord is our strength. He goes against temptation mighty, for the hope of the next world repels the fiery darts of the adversary. He can labor without present reward, for he looks for a reward in the world to come. He can suffer rebuke, and can afford to die a slandered man, because he knows that God will avenge His own elect who cry day and night unto Him. Through the Spirit of God the hope of another world is the most potent force for the product of virtue; it is a fountain of joy; it is the very channel of usefulness.” —Charles Spurgeon
“Fast growth comes from overwhelming the smallest possible audience with a product or service that so delights that they insist that their friends and colleagues use it. And hypergrowth is a version of the same thing, except those friends and colleagues quickly become even bigger fans, and tell even more people. Often, we get sidetracked when we forget about ‘smallest possible.’ If you make the audience you’re initially serving too big, you will dilute the very thing you set out to make, avoid critical mass, and compromise the magic of what you’re building. You’ll make average stuff for average people instead of something powerful for the few. By ‘smallest possible’ I don’t mean, ‘too small.’ I mean the smallest number that eventually leads to the kernel of conversation that enables you to grow.” —Seth Godin
[VIDEO] An interesting discussion: Can postmodernists live a consistent life?…
Craig T. Owens 